Positively Mine Read online

  Sheryl is pleased with my dress choice. I think she was worried when I told her she’d need to wait until tonight to see it. It took two days to find, but a bridal shop in Midtown actually had a maternity section, and they were able to get my size in navy from another store on Long Island. I only picked it up this afternoon – tight turnaround. Thankfully it fits, and I don’t look pregnant, just chunky. Really chunky.

  My father stands with the minister and watches as we walk. His lips curve up in a smile when I pass by. I make sure to hold my bouquet right over my stomach, just in case, and take a seat with the other bridesmaids and Sheryl’s mother in the front row. Only Martha will stand with Sheryl. My father never chose a best man, so her father will stand up for him.

  The harpist begins the Wedding March, and everyone rises. When Sheryl appears in the doorway, there are oohs and ahs; then a hush takes over the room as the music plays. She is a beautiful bride in a straight-fitting dress and tiara. Instead of a bouquet, she holds one single long-stemmed rose, which I thought seemed kind of cheesy when she described it, but it works. I observe my dad as he watches her make her way down the aisle, holding her father’s arm. His face is calm, content. He loves her, I can tell; it’s in his eyes. I’m reminded of what Alison said at our last meeting. Forgiveness.

  Since learning of their baby news, I’ve contemplated a thousand different scenarios of how I could ruin this wedding. I could stand up during the ceremony when the minister asks if anyone has any reason they should not be wed and say I do. I could clink my glass at the reception and congratulate my dad because he’s going to be both a grandfather and new father at the same time. I could butt stomachs with Sheryl on the dance floor and fist bump her.

  But I’m not going to do anything like that, even though the last one’s pretty tempting. Thinking back to what my father said at Thanksgiving – he deserves to be happy too. Maybe I have made it difficult for him. It’s not like I’ve done it on purpose. Can I blame him for resenting the position he’s been forced into? Will I resent my own child one day if my life doesn’t go as planned?

  After the I do’s, we are funneled out to another room for champagne, hors d’oeuvres and formal photos followed by a sit-down dinner with a jazz band. It is a beautiful evening. Sheryl planned every detail to the nines. When the cake is cut, I join a line of people that’s formed near the dance floor, waiting to say good-bye. They’re leaving on an early flight to the Bahamas for four days – all my father could take off with the upcoming trial.

  Sheryl grabs my hand. “Thank you for everything. It was wonderful.”

  I turn to say good-bye to my father when someone calls, “Everyone, look. They’re dropping the ball in Times Square. It must be a dress rehearsal for tomorrow night. Come see!”

  My dad and Sheryl and all the guests run over to the window, leaving me standing in the middle of the room alone.

  Rather than join this crowd of strangers at the window, I opt instead to join the one on the street. Finding a cab proves impossible, so I walk the forty-three blocks back to my apartment.

  Thirteen More Pounds

  Chapter Thirty

  My grandmother’s truck, which has been sitting at Rochester Airport in long-term parking for two weeks, is frozen shut. I cannot get the door to unlock, which requires me to take the shuttle back to the airport to buy two large cups of hot water. Not tea, I tell the clerk, just hot water. He still charges me for tea. Then I wait for the shuttle back to long-term parking. And, since it is New Year’s Day and hardly anyone is working, this whole ordeal takes much longer than it should.

  I pour the water over the lock, hoping the heat will penetrate inside the keyhole. It takes several tries before it finally defrosts and I am able to pry open the door. My hands and feet are frozen when I’m finally in the cabin. But it turns out I’m not out of the woods because when I try to start the engine, nothing happens. Just click click click. I try again. Click click click.

  By my fifth attempt, it’s not even making the click click click sound, so I know I am in trouble. I do a search on my phone for tow trucks and begin making calls. I get four answering machines before finally someone picks up. “I’m having car trouble at Rochester Airport. Can you help me?”

  After I explain what’s going on, “Sounds like the battery,” a coarse voice on the other end says.

  “Well, can you come out and give it a jump?” I ask him.

  “I can, but if that doesn’t work and you need to replace it, there’s isn’t anyone open today who is going to be able to do it. It’s a holiday. Plus, my rates are double on holidays. And I only take cash.” I hear a football game on a television in the background.

  “So what should I do?”

  “You might want to wait until tomorrow.”

  I hang up and stare at the speed dial on my phone. I haven’t spoken to Audrey since the potluck, but she’s the only one I can think of to call. I press her number reluctantly. She picks up just before it’s about to go to voicemail. “Hello.”

  “It’s Laurel.”

  “I know.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry to be calling you on New Year’s Day.”

  “It’s okay. What’s up?” She’s polite, but curt.

  “Well, I just got into the airport, and my truck won’t start. The tow truck guy thinks it’s the battery, but he said if I try to fix it today, it’s going to cost a fortune. You’re the only person I can think of to call.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can you help me?”

  A half an hour and twenty frostbitten fingers and toes later, Audrey and Bill show up with spark plugs. Thankfully, Bill knows exactly what he’s doing because I couldn’t even figure out how to get the hood open.

  He makes several attempts to turn the engine over, finally saying, “It’s dead. You’re going to need to have this towed to a service station.”

  Audrey sits in the warm SUV the entire time, not bothering to ask me to join her. When she sees Bill and me in a huddle discussing my options, she rolls down the window. “What’s going on?”

  “Laurel’s going to need a new battery. But she’s probably going to have to wait until tomorrow to do it. I told her she can crash at our place for tonight.”

  “Sure,” Audrey snips and rolls her window back up.

  I grab my suitcase and climb into their car. I am numb, but it’s colder in here with Audrey’s attitude.

  When we get to their apartment, boxes are everywhere. “You guys moving?”

  “Yup,” Bill explains, “the entire building complex is being re-located. Turns out, it didn’t pass inspection, so now the school has to figure out what to do with everyone.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “We already found a two-bedroom off campus.” This is the first time Audrey has said anything since I got in the car.

  “Oh, that’s good.”

  “Yeah. Audrey didn’t want to stay on campus since she’s not taking classes next semester.”

  I look over at her. “You’re not? Why?”

  “I didn’t see the point of shelling out all the money if there’s the chance I won’t be able to finish the term. My due date is right after spring break.”

  “But isn’t that going to put you behind? You were determined to finish on time.”

  She shrugs. “We’re just going to see how it goes. I might end up finishing later anyway because Bill graduates this year, and if he gets a decent enough job, we might have to move.”

  “But you were so set on getting your degree.”

  “I know, but I have to be flexible. We’ve got a baby to provide for. There’s plenty of time for me to get an accounting degree.”

  I sigh. It’s all about sacrifices.

  Now that the ice is broken, Audrey is talking to me more freely. We order a pizza, and I fill her in on everything that’s happened since we last spoke while Bill continues packing boxes. By the look on her face when I’m done, she is amazed. She shakes her head. “I’ve got to hand it to y
ou, Laurel, that is messed up. Unbelievable!”

  The next day Bill and I wait at the airport for the tow truck to arrive. When the guy finally shows up, the first thing he does is point to a sticker on the windshield. “This truck’s overdue for an inspection by two years.”

  Bill squints at me. “You haven’t had it inspected?”

  “I didn’t know. It was my grandmother’s.”

  “Is your registration up to date?”

  I shrug. Coming from New York and not having a car, I don’t even know what he’s talking about. “Where would I find that out?”

  Bill and the driver roll their eyes, and then Bill opens the glove compartment. He pulls out a folder with a few pieces of paper in it. “The registration expired two years ago, which would likely mean it’s been suspended by the DMV and the insurance on the car hasn’t been renewed in years either.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “It means that if you get pulled over driving this thing, it could be impounded and you could be fined a helluva lot of money, even put in jail,” the driver says.

  “Jail?”

  “It’s illegal to drive without insurance in New York, not to mention in an unregistered, uninspected vehicle.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Stop driving it.”

  “But I need it.”

  “Then you better get it taken care of,” Bill says. “Until then, you can’t drive it.”

  “How am I going to get it back to my grandmother’s if I can’t drive it?”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Lived,” I correct. “Dresden.”

  “Change of plans,” Bill tells the driver. “We’re going to have you tow it to Dresden.”

  And just like that my wheels are gone.

  Bill drops me off in front of Miller, barely saying good-bye. I have totally derailed his day. He thought he was driving me to a service station in Rochester, not sixty-five miles to Seneca Lake, then another eighteen to Milton. By the time we get the truck off the rig and back in the garage at my grandmother’s, get to an ATM so I can take out extra money to pay the driver for the extended trip, and he drops me here, most of the afternoon is gone. Now he’s got to rush back because the movers are coming first thing in the morning and they still have a ton of packing left. I shudder to think what he and Audrey say about me when they’re alone. I climb the three flights of stairs to my room and collapse on my bed.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  I roll over to see the moon is high above my window, full and all-consuming in the surprisingly clear winter sky. Looking out on the hill, almost every building is dark. I guess after the fall semester no freshman would willingly volunteer to come back three weeks early for more grueling classwork – except me. I know Rita is here because she sent me a text to say we’d be the only two in the whole dorm and I should come find her once I’m settled.

  I’ve slept long enough and am now feeling restless after such a crap day. It’s almost nine so I put on my shoes, pull on my oversized sweater and march down the eerily quiet hall to the stairwell. It’s a weird feeling being in an empty dormitory. Even though the people who live here keep to themselves, there’s usually enough activity that you never feel like you’re alone. But this…it’s creepy.

  By the time I’ve made it down the three flights, my imagination gets the best of me and I am eager to find Rita. Please be here. This is why I don’t watch scary movies. Rita’s room is right by the main entrance like most of the RA rooms at Colman, strategically placed to be easily accessible. I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear music coming from her room and people talking above it. It sounds like she’s having a party.

  I knock on her door and it swings open. Rita smiles when she sees me. She looks amazing. She’s lost weight or something and her freckled face is beaming. Behind her, a group of upperclassmen are either sitting on her bed or on the floor, drinking bottled beer. They glance my way when she says, “Hey! I was waiting for you to stop by.” Then she turns to the group and says, “This is Laurel. The only freshman on the entire hill doing J-term. Be nice to her.”

  I get a series of nods and hellos and as I look around her room, I can’t help noticing that the stash of junk food she used to keep near the window is nowhere to be found. Rita offers me her desk chair and then sits down on a large, fleecy pillow on the floor and picks up her beer. A dark, long-haired guy with an earring in each ear wearing a Lenny Kravitz T-shirt grabs a beer from her mini-fridge, opens it, and hands it to me without even asking if I want one. I take it because I don’t know what else to do.

  “This stays between us, okay?” She clinks my beer.

  “You look really good. Have you lost weight?”

  “Fifteen pounds since Halloween!” She grins.

  “How’d you do it?”

  “Exercise, mostly. And I stopped buying Doritos and pigging-out on ice cream. Didn’t you notice the ice cream socials came to a halt back in October?”

  “I did wonder what happened there. I thought maybe you’d gotten too busy to have them anymore.”

  “No. I needed to make a change. I gained a bunch of weight last year and finally decided I had to lose it.” I see her glimpse at my body and she adds, “You have to be careful around here with all the ordering in and the cafeteria food. It’s really unhealthy.”

  That is directed right at me and my face flushes. No matter how I dress, my weight is becoming increasingly noticeable. I’m going to have to be more careful. I change the subject. “Did you have a good break?”

  She takes a sip of beer, “It was too short, but yes. How ‘bout you?”

  I barely get an answer out when the three girls sitting on her bed stand in unison and say, “Everyone ready?”

  Rita smiles, “Have you been downtown yet?”

  My mind goes back to my time spent at the Women’s Choice Health Center but that’s not what she’s talking about. “I, um, don’t have ID.”

  The guy in the Lenny Kravitz T-shirt, who they call Wolf, chimes in. “You won’t need it tonight. The bars will be happy for your business.”

  He takes out his car keys and tosses them to the only other guy here, a ruddy-faced, pudgy kid named Bryn. “You just drank your last beer. You’re driving tonight.”

  Though I am tempted to decline the invite, the thought of being the ONLY person in the dorm on this dark hill is too unnerving. The city chick in me needs some people around. I run to grab the king-size wool coat that hides me best and some cash and meet them outside where they’re piling into Wolf’s SUV. I can see my breath through the scarf I’ve pulled around my face and try not to shiver and shift my weight from one foot to the next waiting for my turn to climb in.

  There are three rows in the SUV, but there’s no leg room in the last one where I am sitting squeezed between the window and Rita. Wolf is on her other side. He rests his hand across her legs and she puts her head on his shoulder. I wonder if maybe he’s played a small role in her sudden desire for change.

  We are downtown within minutes and Bryn finds a spot right in front of a shoddy-looking storefront with a red neon sign in the window that says The Pine.

  We unload and enter a rundown tavern with a long timber bar lined with sixties-style vinyl stools, a pool table in the back that has seen its better days, and a juke box in the corner. If there are twenty people in here, it is a lot and none of them look like they could possibly go to Colman. This is a townie bar if I ever saw one.

  Rita loops her arm in mine and whispers, “We’ll grab the booth in the back and Wolf will get us some pitchers.” As she pulls me past the bartender, I hear Wolf say “Hey, Viv! Happy New Year.”

  The woman behind the bar doesn’t seem to notice me or any of the others in our pact as we stroll by. If she does, she doesn’t care. We slip into a timber booth across from the bathrooms. It is the only place to sit other than at the bar and the table is covered with names and dates carved into the top along with countless cigarette burn marks. Thing
s like Marty was here, 1966 and hearts with Tammy loves Jake reveal a long history. Bryn lays a couple quarters on the pool table where four biker-type dudes, over-tattooed, shoot balls without conversation. There’re a couple of scantily clad girls with big hair and too much make-up on at the bar talking to men who are way too old for them. Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven is vibrating through the juke box.

  After a few minutes, Wolf arrives with two pitchers full of beer and a bunch of plastic cups tucked under his arm. He sits next to Rita, so close he’s practically on top of her, and she starts pouring drinks for everyone.

  “You gotta love a $5 pitcher,” he remarks as he drapes his arm around her and takes a long swill.

  Bryn looks down at his lack-of beverage, pouting, while I stare at the huge cup in front of me, filled to the brim with flat, cheap beer. I silently exhale and push it his way. “I can be the designated driver.”

  Everyone looks at me and Rita says, “You don’t have to. It’s Bryn’s turn. He hasn’t been around all year.”

  “No it’s fine. I don’t like beer much anyway. Besides, I have to be up early tomorrow for Plant Biology. It’s better if I don’t drink.”

  Rita shrugs, “Well, I won’t argue considering I’m your RA. I’ve already snuck you into a bar underage. I probably shouldn’t be forcing alcohol on you, too!”

  “Do you want a soda?” Bryn asks. His face much brighter now. “On me, all night.”

  “Sure. Diet coke?”

  He heads to the bar.

  I lean into the hard bench. Got out of it this time. Next time someone is going to call me on it.

  Rita’s other friends are Sarah, Kaitlin and Heather. I learn they all shared a suite together freshman year and have been close ever since. Everyone at the table is an English major other than Bryn who, like me, prefers the sciences. He is here for Plant Biology, too. He’s got a few credits to make up since he spent the fall semester studying in the Galapagos Islands, he explains, when he returns with my soda.